Could Your Water Be Making You Toxic? Bottled Water & Filtration Tips
Dr Livingood
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Your water could be toxic! I’m going to pick out some of the most common bottled water from the store, go over the pros and cons of each, and tell you if the water you’re drinking is toxic.
If you want to have the highest quality of drinking water, you need to follow these 3 rules of water.
You can use this site to test not just your state, not just your city, but your exact zip code’s water. Most cities have a water report that you can look into, but this site tells you what contaminants could be in your water.
There are so many pesticides, drugs, and chemicals used in manufacturing that can all end up in your water. Just because your tap water is safe to drink doesn’t mean it’s healthy.
If you want to purify the water in your home, try getting a water purifier.
There are fridge filters that use reverse osmosis, which is fine; it’s going to strip the minerals from the water, but it does get contaminants out.
My family uses surface-area filtration.
2. Water Energy
What would you rather drink out of, a pond or a river? The pond has scum on it, it’s not moving, it’s stagnant, and has microbes growing in it. The river water is flowing!
You want water that moves and puts life back into the water. You can swirl your water hard to get some life back into it.
If you’re using bottled water, I recommend drinking spring water.
3. Water pH
The pH of your water is important! If your water is super acidic, which means lower on the pH scale, that’s only going to make you more acidic.
To test common brands of bottled water, I used a water tester that tells me the pH of the water after I put a couple of drops into it.
The pH scale goes from 0-14, with 7 being a neutral pH.
The lower end of the pH scale is more acidic, so a 4 with this tester is going to make the water very orange, meaning it’s very acidic.
Your stomach is acidic, so you do need some acidic substances, but we mostly want to be on the upper side of the scale, the alkaline side.
Your body has a normal pH level of around 7.4, so we need our water to be around a 7.5 to maintain that.
Now, let’s go over the test results of some of the different brands of bottled water.
Nestlé Pure Life
Nestlé’s gotten some good scores as being one of the cleanest waters when it comes to contamination.
This Nestlé water scored around the middle of the pH scale, at a 6.5 or a 7.
That means Nestlé isn’t bad in terms of a clean bottled water to drink.
Dasani
Dasani adds minerals in their water, which I like, because water with minerals is like the river—it’s going to make the water move into your cells.
It’s pretty acidic, scoring a 5 on the pH scale. I wouldn’t recommend this one, because the pH is super low.
Core
Core is marketed as a pH water, and it definitely is one.
This scores around a 7.5 or 8, has minerals in it, and is purified through reverse osmosis, so it’s not a bad option!
Evian
Evian water claims to have a pH of 7.2, but I think they undershot it. Based on the test results, I think it’s probably around 7.5.
It’s more of a spring water, which I like because it has natural electrolytes and minerals in it.
Evian is not a bad choice when it comes to bottled water.
Smart Water
Smart Water has a very low pH—the test showed it to be around a 5, which is crazy. I used to drink a lot of Smart Water until I started to learn more about it.
It does have some electrolytes in it, but they’re just using things like calcium chloride and magnesium chloride, which aren’t terrible but are kind of simulating minerals.
Life Water
You might expect Life Water to be pretty solid, but it actually scores pretty low.
Its pH level is around 6, which isn’t bad, but isn’t the most alkaline.
We’re not looking for super-high alkaline water, but levels of 7 and above are going the right way.
Fiji
Fiji Water has a pH close to an 8, which is very solid.
I also like it because it’s spring water, which means it was moving around naturally. It didn’t just come out of a tap and then get purified.
Essentia
Essentia claims to have a pH of 9.5, and it does live up to the hype. It is very alkaline, but that doesn’t necessarily mean it’s super healthy for you.
It does say it’s purified, and they use ionization, which can take a lot of nutrients out of the water.
You have to be careful with it, but you should be fine if you take it while run down, sick, or doing a juice cleanse. That’s when I drink high-pH water.
But if you drink high-pH water all the time, you’re dumping alkaline water into your stomach, which has an acidic pH of around 3.5.
A low pH or high pH will damage your stomach lining over time.
So it’s not that you can never drink this water, but you don’t want to drink water that has a pH of 9.5 all the time.
Ideally, you want a water that is around 7.5.
Deer Park
You’re paying a quarter of the price for this water compared to Fiji or Essentia.
Deer Park does have a higher pH than Fiji Water, and isn’t that far off from Essentia’s pH level, so you’re saving a lot of money by buying this instead.
I don’t have the data on how clean this water is like I do for Nestlé Pure Life, but for what you have access to, Deer Park’s not a bad choice.
What To Drink
If I had to pick a bottled water to drink, I prefer spring water, because it’s naturally flowing.
But how do you improve bad water, or deal with the pH of your tap water being low?
If you’re drinking something like Smart Water, you want to make sure you’re getting more minerals in a real form like a greens powder.
I like to add greens to my water, because it increases the water’s pH levels and provides what my body needs to drive the water into my cells.
If you’re missing a lot of electrolytes, then put electrolytes into it. I like to use an electrolyte powder for my electrolytes every day in the afternoon.
This energizes my cells, energizes my water by putting minerals in, and then I’m using greens powder to drive the water into my cells.
That way, even if I’m drinking bottled water, I can get my electrolytes and minerals in, and improve the quality of the water.
If I can get somewhat purified bottled water, that’s even better.
I also like to use glass bottles, because plastic bottles have microplastics in the water that float around and then go into you.
I do recommend filtering your tap water through some kind of Brita or fridge filter.
My family has a whole-house filtration system, which means the shower, toilet, and everything else is filtered.
You can also try using reverse-osmosis filtration, which takes a lot of chemicals out, but does also take out all the minerals.
If you have a reverse-osmosis system, it’s okay—you just need to put in minerals through greens, which is going to change the pH instantly.
Remember, you want to aim to drink half your body weight in ounces of water each day.
Summary
Overall, if you have to drink bottled water on a budget, I would go with either Deer Park or Nestlé.
Nestlé – Pretty good
Dasani – Not so good
Core – Fine, but can be expensive if you drink it frequently
Evian – Not bad
Smart Water – Bad
Life Water– Not too bad
Fiji Water – Really good
Essentia – High-pH water, which isn’t bad, but don’t drink it all the time
Deer Park – Good
I bought a lot of water to test this info, and all I ask in return is that you share it so that someone else can learn from it. Help someone out!
If you want to learn more about water and what you should and shouldn’t drink, check out my book, which breaks it down so you can better understand it.
